Charter for Working Group

The HTTP State Management Mechanism (aka Cookies) was originally created by Netscape Communications in their informal Netscape cookie specification ("cookie_spec.html"), from which formal specifications RFC 2109 and RFC 2965 evolved. The formal specifications, however, were never fully implemented in practice; RFC 2109, in addition to cookie_spec.html, more closely resemble real-world implementations than RFC 2965, even though RFC 2965 officially obsoletes the former. Compounding the problem are undocumented features (such as HTTPOnly), and varying behaviors among real-world implementations.

The working group will create a new RFC that: * obsoletes RFC 2109, * updates RFC 2965 to the extent it overlaps or voids RFC 2109, and * specifies Cookies as they are actually used in existing implementations and deployments.

Where commonalities exist in the most widely used implementations, the working group will specify the common behavior. Where differences exist among the most widely used implementations, the working group will document the variations and seek consensus to reduce variation by selecting among the most widely used variations.

The working group must not introduce any new syntax or new semantics not already in common use.

The working group's specific deliverables are: * A standards-track document that is suitable to supersede RFC 2109 (likely based on draft-abarth-cookie) * An informational document cataloguing the differences between major implementations